[B-Greek] rough breathing in Koine times
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at ioa.com
Wed Jul 27 13:09:23 EDT 2005
It's unclear to me in exactly what sense Malcolm means "preserved." I
may well be saying the same thing -- I hope more clearly -- in simply
noting that for those who learned to write Greek in a school, at
least, spelling tends to be far more conservative than oral usage.
You might compare English where we write "although" and say "altho."
On Jul 27, 2005, at 11:34 AM, malcolm robertson wrote:
> Dear Eric,
>
> Because in writing at least this is how the rough breathing was
> preserved.
> ________________________
>
> Eric Weiss <papaweiss1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Schemes which set forth Koine/NT/1st-century Greek pronunciation
> state that the rough
> breathing had ceased by then and was not pronounced (just as it's
> not pronounced in
> Modern Greek), even though the rough breathing mark continued to be
> used.
>
> Why, then, did the forms of AF' (from APO) and OUC (from OU/OUK)
> and hUF' (from hUPO)
> etc. continue if there was no difference in pronunciation or sound
> between an initial vowel (or
> diphthong) with a rough breathing and an initial vowel (or
> diphthong) with a smooth breathing?
> Why do we not usually see AP' and OUK and hUP' etc. before initial
> vowels and diphthongs
> when there is a rough breathing?
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/
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